A segmentation method for touching Japanese handwritten characters based on connecting condition of lines

In unconstrained Japanese handwritten character strings, there are many touching characters. Segmentation of touching characters is required as preprocessing of isolated character recognition. But conventional segmentation methods cannot segment complicated touching characters. In this paper we propose a new segmentation method based on connecting condition of lines at a touching point, and evaluate the efficiency of this method for touching Japanese handwritten characters. This method could segment complicated touching characters with less unnecessary segmentations